In enmeshed sibling relationships, the depravity of one becomes the trauma of the other. I developed symptoms that mirrored hers, just in different forms. She used substances; I used perfectionism. She disappeared into nights; I disappeared into hours of studying until my vision blurred. We were both trying to escape the same childhood, just through different doors.
My parents fought in whispers behind closed doors. “It’s a phase,” my mother said. “She’s just testing boundaries.” But boundaries are fences around a yard; what Elena was doing was setting fire to the house. my older sister falling into depravity and i link
The shift was tectonic, not volcanic. It didn’t happen in a single explosion. It happened in small, deniable increments. At fourteen, Elena started skipping dinner. At fifteen, she came home with a new boyfriend whose leather jacket smelled of cigarettes and something else—something stale and predatory. At sixteen, she stopped coming home at all for days. In enmeshed sibling relationships, the depravity of one